Marie Monday

If one insist on having one single definition of women, then yes, allowing for gender in that definition necessarily excludes sex. But in practice, we use two definitions of 'woman', one about gender and one about sex, and as long as we keep doing that carefully enough many of the problems you are worried about are resolved.

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jadis

The other stuff (the interplay between our bodies and our culture, shall we say) is far too vast and interesting to require a de-finition. It's pretty much in-finite because it's the very stuff of the ever-shifting history of us thinking about our place in the world.

Part of that history in the past few decades is the elevation of sensitivity over truth, which we more and more see is NOT the inoffensive and slightly goofy thing we've been told to believe it is. This is why I think it's paramount to not give an inch to people who want to compel speech and make us much more confused about basic reality than we need to be.

There's infinitely more room to think about the more interesting stuff that escapes straightforward categorization in a liberal democracy without compelled speech than in a world where there are legal consequences for forgetting to refer to some aggressive dick as a "she".

Marie Monday

I don't think anything like that needs a formal definition, that's not what I meant. And I think your 'all or nothing' mentality about this is false

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jadis

You agree that I make some good points but believe I'm too categorical. I think you're making what some philosophers call a "category error", because what we're dealing with here are, well, categories. That's literally the battleground.

It's not a "mentality" but a recognition of how the law works. The reasons to NOT open up the membership conditions in the public concept of "woman" beyond birthright trump other considerations: once it becomes an opt-in concept, we surrender the legal basis to keep this out of women's spaces and to avoid this in prisons.

You'll say I've already said this a thousand times and you'll be right, but seems to me like your objections rather veer off into the generality of "let's all be nicer and more broad minded about gender and more accepting." Apologies if this is a caricature of your position but it's not without truth.

Marie Monday

No it really isn't the truth. I really see it as the most organic way forward, as I've tried to explain, especially since many people use this new flexibility to be unconventional with gender, which blurs the line further. I don't think you're too categorical; you're being too theoretical. In practice, as I've said before, we use 'woman' differently in different contexts (law, social interactions, medicine etc) and treating those all the same just won't do. There are categories, but there is not a single mode of categorisation. I think your nifty little theorising (and I've been there, except I did accept trans people) simply doesn't reflect the reality of how we think about and use gender.

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Marie Monday

In other words, what we mean by 'woman' often amounts to gender. Saying 'from now on we'll just mean sex' is not realistic and will not work. And it's also not true that acknowledging a trans girl you're chatting to as a woman necessarily implies getting the law involved in acknowledging gender. And anyway, in cases where distinction by sex is important, categorising as 'female sex' often works fine and you don't need to talk about 'women' at all

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jadis

Good, we're getting to the nub of the matter. There are two things I believe you don't take into account.

1) The tension between the function of laws as broad brush preventive measures and the commendable desire they be as reflective of the diversity of our dreams and desires

2) The political reality that once a sex-denialist, gender ID-based definition takes root in one institution or field, lobbyists and pressure groups say "that's a precedent!" and apply ****ing nuclear levels of pressure to extend this definition into others. To be disabused of the illusion where this is not happening I recommend reading up on how power works and how politics works. For useful primers on how these work in this particular domain, you could do worse than Helen Joyce's Trans and Katheleen Stock's Material Girls.

Depends on what you mean by accept. I accept they exist, I'm unfailingly polite to them IRL (hell, even supportive when it's someone I have a positive opinion of), I believe they should be protected from discrimination in areas such as employment (for instance, the Trump admin on military service was unacceptable). But in a liberal democracy, the right to swing your fist ends where someone else's face begins. In a liberal democracy (in life, I would say), you don't get to compel anyone to share your view of yourself, which is the explicit and unstated goal of trans activism.

Synthgirl

Yes, thank you. I completely agree. Like, I have to look up medical information specific to male-born people all the time, I don't get angry about it, I acknowledge that I was born male, and I acknowledge that my cultural upbringing was different than cis women.

And as for "legal consequences for forgetting to say the correct pronouns", like, if you actually forgot, most trans people in my experience are cool with a quick "oh, oops, sorry", and such. And like, cis people can get misgendered too. If I started just referring to an established cis man as "she" that would also be dickish. And if I refused to use that cis man's correct pronouns and repeatedly misgendered him despite him making it clear that he does not want it and it makes him uncomfortable, then I think that would fall under harassment. So why is it a great and bold statement to harass trans people and a dick move to harass cis people? Why does the way people feel comfortable presenting and referring to themselves need to be rigidly bound to the genitalia they were born with?

Like Marie said, for practical situations where the biological sex is relevant, then yeah of course I'll have to go with the "male" category. I don't think most trans people have a problem with acknowledging the way they were born.

You don't have to like trans people, but we deserve to be able to exist with the same basic level of respect and comfort in public life that cis people get by default.

Marie Monday

I don't have any illusions like that, you absolute goof

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jadis

That can only mean that you realize the consequences of opening up the legal category of woman to include natal men, which include putting violent sex offenders in women's jails, and accept them. Because that's what's happening in practice.

"I support all the good things" is not a sustainable position beyond a certain age.